


The Ball I Threw While Playing in the Park

by theorclair



Category: Cabin Pressure, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-18
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2018-02-21 15:00:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2472443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theorclair/pseuds/theorclair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martin Crieff and Sherlock Holmes wake up in each other's bodies. Chaos ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For a [prompt on the Cabin Pressure kink meme](http://cabinpres-fic.dreamwidth.org/783.html?thread=3027215#cmt3027215): Martin wakes up one morning about five inches taller with dark curly hair and everyone thinking he's an arse.
> 
> Sherlock wakes up the same morning to some insufferable woman (divorced, small dog, two sisters, lives with her son) telling him he needs to fly a plane.
> 
> (Bonus points for Sherlock having to fake a relationship with some smug bastard called Douglas, and Martin having to pretend to be in love with John, who's a lovely chap but so very boring, can he have his smarmy boyfriend back now, please.)
> 
> Title is from Dylan Thomas' ["Should Lanterns Shine":](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/should-lanterns-shine/)
> 
>  
> 
> _The ball I threw while playing in the park_  
>  _Has not yet reached the ground._
> 
>  
> 
> Unbetaed and unbritpicked. If you want to volunteer for either please do so.

In his defense, it was early in the morning. True, it wasn't much of one, since there were about a hundred other things he should have noticed, but it was something. No matter when Martin woke up, he had fifteen minutes of haze to work through before coming fully awake. And he'd woken up in so many different hotels over the years he was used to his surroundings being unfamiliar. That really wasn't an excuse, but it was something.

He had noticed something as soon as he woke up - the room smelled different. Most cheap hotels smelled like cigarette smoke, must, and roach spray, and this room only had a faint spicy odor. He even half noticed that the bathroom didn't smell of mildew. It didn't bother him that the shampoo and soap were unfamiliar; he was used to that. Once he was ready to get out of the shower he noticed the towels were nicer than those hotels usually had, and looked ridiculously expensive. Still, a towel was a towel, and he dried himself off without thinking much about it.

It was only when he turned to look at himself in the bathroom mirror that he screamed.

************************************************************************************

Sherlock knew he wasn't in the same place he'd fallen asleep in before he even opened his eyes. The room smelled like stale cigarette smoke and pesticide. The mattress was lumpy and uneven. And furthermore, the amount of heat that the person next to him was generating indicated whoever it was was far bigger than John. He kept his eyes shut for another thirty seconds, trying to figure out as much as he could about his surroundings without them. The smell and the mattress indicated a cheap hotel, if one that wasn't in the business of unrespectable guests (none of those hotels would have bothered to spray for bugs). The person next to him was a large man, sleeping on his side. He seemed accustomed to sharing a bed with someone, possibly through travel but more likely through romantic relationships. Not enough information to indicate which of the two had been present before Sherlock had replaced his bed mate.

He opened his eyes. The ceiling was definitely one of a shabby hotel room. He looked to the left and saw an electrical outlet with three small holes in a row. So he was in Germany, then. He looked to the right and saw a large man with salt and pepper hair sleeping facing the other wall. There was nothing else to easily see and so Sherlock got out of the bed. It was then he realized something had happened that was more severe than just being moved. He was four or five inches shorter than he usually was. Time to make his way to a mirror, then. 

The small bathroom had an equally small mirror perched over the sink. His head - or at least the head of someone - barely came up to the bottom. His hair was now a bright flaming red and would be very curly if it wasn't cut short; he now had green/hazel eyes. And at least an entire face full of freckles. He looked down and saw he now wore pajamas with airplane patterns on them. A quick check of the rest of the bathroom revealed nothing helpful, so Sherlock stepped back into the hotel room.

Clearly he couldn't have undergone such drastic bodily changes overnight, nor could he have gotten to Germany in that period of time unless there was an airplane involved. The only explanation for this had to be that he had swapped bodies with the ginger man. Or more precisely they had swapped consciousnesses. True, such a thing only existed in theory, but he couldn't have gotten into someone else's hotel room in Germany while also being drastically physically modified in any theory at all. His first instinct was to ring John, but looked at the one clock in the room and saw it was five-thirty here. He'd still be asleep, then, and the ginger man (if he was truly in Sherlock's body) wouldn't wake up for several hours; there had been a run of cases until very recently.

Sherlock walked over to the table the clock sat on. The only thing on it besides the clock was a battered wallet. The size of it indicated it belonged to whoever his body did. He opened it and found one five pound note, a torn paystub with "get more laundry detergent" written on it, and a driving license, reversed so he could only see that the man was certified in the UK to drive a car, a minibus, and a motorbike. He flipped it over and was faced with himself in his new body. The man's name was Martin Crieff. Nothing else was there. The pay stub indicated he wasn't paid a lot, but he must have had some job that required travel. The other man was probably a co-worker; if this Martin Crieff had a lot of one-night stands he would be carrying a great deal more money in his wallet, if nothing else.

The room had a closet door and it occured to Sherlock that he could probably find the man's work clothes. He opened the door and found two uniforms hanging in there, one neat and one worn. Stripes on the cuffs. Oh, they were pilots. That made him pause. Sherlock knew about more things than most people gave him credit for (besides John), but that did not include flying an airplane. The uniforms didn't have any logos he could recognize, so it had to be a smaller company, but even then he knew anything they wanted him to do would be beyond him.

This was clearly going to be more complicated then he originally thought.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin gets a few more unpleasant surprises.

Martin blinked, or at least it felt like he did, and the person in the mirror blinked as well. It wasn't him, though. It couldn't be him. His eyes weren't gray. His hair wasn't long or black. And he wasn't tall. He raised his hand, and the figure in the mirror raised his.

Maybe it was a prank.

When he took another look around the bathroom, he knew it had to be more than that. This looked like a real bathroom, one in a flat. How had he gotten here?

He heard the door open. "Sherlock?" an unfamiliar voice said. Seconds later, a strange man stepped into the bathroom. Martin remembered he was only wearing a towel, and he would have been a lot more embarrased if it had been his body. And had the man called him Sherlock? He didn't think that was a name anyone had besides the character.

"Is something wrong?" the man said. He was a little shorter than Martin usually was, with dark blond hair and lines under his eyes.

"I'm not me," Martin quickly replied, and cursed himself internally for saying it. Just like him to put his foot in his mouth.

The other man looked at him with a look that was both perplexed and long-suffering. "What?" he said.

"When I went to sleep I was in a hotel in Germany and I woke up here and I'm suddenly taller and everything is different and I've never seen you before in my life." Well, if putting his foot in his mouth hadn't been bad enough, adding another one wouldn't make it any worse.

The man stepped past him and began to search a few areas for reasons Martin couldn't figure out. "If you've taken something just tell me."

"Help," Martin could only come up with.

That, of all things, was the bit that widened the man's eyes and made him step away. He looked over Martin in the strange man's body one more time and said "My god. You're telling the truth."

"I wouldn't make something like that up. Wouldn't be smart enough to come up with it. Do you have a phone I can use to ring my boss? She's going to be mad enough now."

The man's whole bearing softened. "Come out of here and get something to wear. I'll lend you my mobile in a minutes."

Martin stepped out of the bathroom and into the hall, and then into the nearby bedroom. He self-consiously began going through the clothes in the wardrobe. Almost all of them were made of silk or other fine fabric and looked like the sort of thing that would cost him a year's salary. He finally settled on a white button-down shirt and dark blue trousers that didn't look quite as costly as the other clothes. That done, he headed back to the hallway where the other man was standing. "Come on, I'll bring you into the sitting room." He led Martin down the hall and into a comfortable looking room with two chairs and a sofa. Martin sat gingerly on the sofa. The man took a seat on one of the chairs and said "Well, that proves you're telling the truth. He'd never look so uncoordinated."

Martin assumed "him" was whoever normally resided in this body. "I'm not used to being so tall."

"What's your name?"

"Martin Crieff."

"Hi Martin, I'm John Watson."

Martin looked at him for a second before dissolving into laughter. That explained why he'd been called "Sherlock" before. That wasn't his name, just an apparently running joke about being unfortunately named the same thing as a fictional character.

John gave him a cautious look, and it was enough to halt the laughter in his throat. After Martin had composed himself, he went on. "You said you wanted to ring your boss?"

"Yes. If whoever's supposed to be here is now me, she's going to throw a fit."

"You weren't at home when it happened, then. You said something about Germany?" John reached for a pencil and paper from a nearby table.

"We'd flown to Germany. Frankfurt - I'm a pilot. I was last in my hotel room."

John wrote something down on the paper. "When did you go to sleep?"

"Around ten-thirty. We had to fly back early tomorrow so I wanted to stay in hours."

"Was anyone else in the room with you then?"

"Just my - first officer." This John Watson might be the modern type who wouldn't flinch at two men in a relationship, but Martin was not willing to take that chance.

"Did you notice anything that seems unusual now?"

"No."

John nodded, and put down the paper and pencil. "Do you want to ring your boss now?"

"Yes," said Martin, feeling dread even as he did. Carolyn was the type who would ignore the weirdness of the situation and just be upset that whoever was in his body now didn't know how to fly a plane. Before he could dwell on this, John placed a mobile in his hand. Still feeling dread but knowing he couldn't put it off, he dialed Carolyn's number. Instead of ringing, it emitted a shrill noise and told him that the number was no longer in service. He ended the call and rang the number again. The same thing happened. Now even more worried, he wondered who to call instead. Douglas had left his mobile at home and Arthur had a bad habit of not charging his. Could he call Herc? Martin knew Carolyn's landline number, but he had never used it before. Herc might not even be at the house in the first place. He dialed it anyway. This time the mobile rang twice before he heard a sleepy "Hello?" Unfortunately it wasn't anyone he recognized, and certainly wasn't Herc.

"Wrong number," he muttered and ended the call. Just to make sure, he fiddled with the mobile for a minute and eventually brought up a list of numbers called. The last two were exactly how he remembered Carolyn's number. Could it just be he wasn't remembering it right? If he rang the directory, at least he'd be able to find out. He put the number in, and when the person on the other end answered, he said "I'd like to look up a number."

"What's the last name?" said the woman on the other end.

"Knapp-Shappey."

"And the town?"

"Fitton."

"What's the postcode? I'm not familiar with a Fitton."

Martin's stomach turned to ice. "I can't remember it off the top of my head. Fitton Airfield? 42 Adams Lane? Airport FTN?"

"Is this a joke?" the woman at the other end said, sounding irritated.

"No," he said quickly before disconnecting. Out of the corner of his eye he could see John moving around in the kitchen. "Is there a computer I can use?" he asked, hoping that John wouldn't ask too many questions.

"The laptop by the chair I was sitting in before," John said back. Martin shuffled over to the chair and sat down. He felt more dread now then he had at any point in his life, even before his seventh exam sit or his dad's funeral. Hesitantly he pulled up the browser and typed in the URL to the site Arthur had so proudly designed.

URL not found.

He pulled up a search engine and typed "fitton" into it. A ton of results came up, but nothing about the town.

Suddenly the computer seemed very distant. He felt like he was falling into a pit. His ears rang. Everything familiar was gone. His job, his friends, his home, his body, his life couldn't be found.

In that weird distant feeling he was sort of aware of falling to the ground. Then nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MJN realizes something's up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for being so late in posting this. I have five writing projects I'm working on now, so updates might be a little slow.

Sherlock wanted more information, and he wasn't ready for a confrontation with the sleeping man yet, so he showered, put on the unfamiliar uniform, and left the room. The hallway leading to the elevator was just as dismal as the rest of the place. No one seemed to be around this early in the morning. He descended in the elevator alone, and stepped out into the lobby. A glance at a stack of newspapers indicated he was in Frankfurt. A sign nearby indicated that breakfast was being served in a nearby room. Sherlock suspected it was complimentary, but the sign didn't say, and in any event the condition of the hotel made eating there decidedly unappealing. Still, there might be co-workers of the man whose body he was in in there. It would be best to at least start looking for them; the explanations would take a long time and he didn't want to ring John until they were done.

The not very big room had a buffet table in the middle and two tables with long benches flanking it. Only two people were in the room, a woman in her sixties and a young-looking man, sitting next to each other. The woman had a mug of coffee or tea in front of her, the man had a plate piled high with hardboiled eggs, sausages, a hefty hunk of bread and a large glass of chocolate milk.

"You can buy boxes of butterflies online, and you can let them out at the end! They show pictures and everything!" The man's enthusiasm radiated through every word.

"And how long would a set of butterflies last in February in England, pray tell?" the woman said in a weary tone. It clicked then in Sherlock's head they were mother and son.

His face fell. "I suppose that wouldn't be very nice for them." He paused. "And if Herc thinks it's mean to eat animals I don't think he'd like seeing some butterflies die on his -"

"Tax break arrangement day," the woman said before he could finish. So the woman was getting married. At least one previous abusive relationship, most likely also one that fell apart over differences, probably about having children. Thinks that if she talks about it in non-emotional terms it will be easier to deal with when it fails, although she isn't consciously aware of that. The man she's engaged to would be more than happy to give her a large wedding but respects her wishes. "I think you've given enough helpful suggestions about it."

"You're still sure we can't have it at the airfield?"

"It doesn't seem the best place, no."

"But GERT-I could come!"

"GERT-I is not a person. Remember my rule: people only. No dogs, no airplanes."

"But if you had it at the airfield it could be a business expense!"

The woman gave him an exasperated look. "Not everything at the airfield is a business expense."

He looked confused. "Then how come you could pay off the bills on the house? Didn't the will say all the money was just for MJN?"

"Yes. The mortgage was paid off by a one-time bonus to the CEO. Me. Now the house is ours, and we can continue to conduct the business the money was so generously earmarked for." So, their business had once been in financial trouble, only saved by someone, probably a client, dying and willing them a large sum of money. The woman didn't look like the type who threw money away without thinking.

Suddenly, the man turned in Sherlock's direction. "Skip! You're up early!" Sherlock quickly went over it in his head: Skip, probably short for Skipper, captain, he must be addressing whoever is supposed to be in this body. He headed over to sit at the table, not saying anything yet. The man smiled broadly at him, his hazel eyes shining, clearly delighted to see him. "We were just talking about the w - I mean, Mum and Herc. The thing." He pointed towards his plate. "Have some eggs and sausages!"

The woman shook her head. "Arthur, while I'm sure you find them edible, I'm not sure that it's the best idea to poison the pilot who will fly us back to Fitton." These were indeed his co-workers. Sherlock made a noncommittal noise. He would have to tell them eventually if they didn't notice themselves; he was completely incapable of flying a plane to Fitton, wherever that was.

The man - Arthur - looked undaunted. "He can have some of the bread. Didn't that passenger we took to Dublin last year say that people all over the world have bread with their breakfasts? Except she said they ate pickled vegetables in Japan. I'm not sure I'd want to eat anything pickled then. It's too sour, and breakfast should be happy and sweet."

"Is that the passenger that had you in hysterics?"

"Yes! She told me that story about the airline that used to sell seats in the bathroom. You have to admit that was funny." He began to giggle at the memory.

An unfamiliar voice sounded from behind where Sherlock sat. "Oh yes. Is that the one who, when she found out Martin didn't get paid, asked if he ate a lot at parties?" It was a male voice, deep. Of course, the man from the hotel room.

"Yeah. She was funny, wasn't she?" He gestured towards the person behind Sherlock. "Sit down, Douglas." 

The man sat down, on the other side of the woman. "Is there a reason you're reminiscing about that flight?"

"She said that most people in the world have some bread with breakfast, and Mum didn't think Skip should eat the sausages they have."

"How wise of Carolyn. I believe I'll refrain from them myself." Carolyn, Douglas, Arthur, and his body was named Martin. That little bit of information would make things easier.

"But now Skip gets a real paycheck, and everything. I wish I could tell her that he can eat anywhere he wants now. That's nice, even if it is sad he got that because Mr. Birling died. Even if we got it. It's like one of those movies where someone dies but makes sure everyone they know is happy before that. So you're happy and sad at the end at the same time."

"Yes, the tragedy of a rich old man who rewrites his will to leave all his money to the airdot that's kind enough to fly him to his rugby game, because he doesn't want to leave it to his wife. Positively Shakespearean," Douglas said dryly. He shot Sherlock a look that was presumably loaded with meaning, but since Sherlock hadn't met him until today, he couldn't tell precisely what the look was supposed to mean. Fond exasperation, as far as Sherlock could infer from his body language.

"Oh, we were talking about the - thing Mum and Herc were going to do." As soon as Arthur said that, someone's mobile rang. It had to be Carolyn's, because she got up and moved towards the door, pulling a mobile out from the bag she took with her. "Mum said no butterflies. Only people." He blinked, oddly enough.

"No, Arthur. We discussed this before." Douglas had clearly had this conversation before.

"But it would be brilliant! Extra-brilliant!"

"Not after only six months. No."

Before Arthur could respond to that, Carolyn came over. "All right, team useless. If we can be at the airport in an hour we can leave early. Arthur, I have your bag with me. Martin, I don't see yours anywhere." She gave Sherlock a stern look.

"I've got it," Douglas said.

"Then let's go."

Within ten minutes they were all in a cab on the way to the airport. Sherlock still hadn't said a word to any of them, but no one seemed to think this was unusual. It was a short trip, and with the hassle of going through customs and security, no one tried to talk to Sherlock at all. He knew he was going to have to say something soon, although he wondered how everyone hadn't noticed that something was off. Perhaps this Martin often acted strangely.

Things reached a head when Sherlock realized that they were going out on the airfield to whatever plane they had. The group stopped in front of a very old-looking airplane that had clearly been given several touchings-up recently. The customer who had left them money must have left a considerable amount, and the company had been hard-up until that point; no one would not give a salary to one of the few people making the company work without financial crisis. Carolyn, the apparent owner, seemed unlikely to spend more than she could afford; therefore the debts must have been early in the business and related to poor deals. Either she had never run a business before or had additional difficulty from some outside source. A divorce, most likely.

He was so lost in his deductions that he didn't hear the first command. "Martin, I told you to do the walk around." Carolyn looked at him strangely.

Sherlock could obviously walk around the plane, but he wouldn't have a clue what he was supposed to be looking for. "I'm Sherlock Holmes," came out of his mouth before he could think about it.

The woman burst into laughter. "Yes you are. Do the walk around and then get in the cockpit with Dr. Watson."

"Is this a new game you and Douglas are playing?" Arthur asked with interest.

"No, I'm not your pilot. I'm Sherlock Holmes."

"You didn't eat any of those sausages, did you?" The look on her face became even stranger.

"No. I appear to have woken up as someone else."

The commotion was enough to bring the other pilot, Douglas, out of the plane. "What's going on? Can you all not get enough of Frankfurt-Hahn?"

"Your captain appears to have suffered a head injury or ingested a hallucinogen. He won't do the walk around and insists he is Sherlock Holmes."

"The one in the books or the one in the old movies? Or the new movies? Or maybe the BBC series from the Eighties?" He came to stand next to them.

"The one who lives with the blogger," Sherlock said in exasperation.

"Martin, come with me." Douglas took his arm and lead him into the plane. He then strong-armed Sherlock to the cockpit. "What are you doing? If this is some sort of prank, can you at least wait until we get in the air?"

"I'm not Martin. I'm Sherlock Holmes. I went to sleep in my room and woke up here in someone else's body. Is it not obvious?" Perhaps this Douglas wasn't the quickest one in the room.

"All right. If you want to play games I'll be the captain for this flight."

Sherlock took off the uniform jacket he was wearing and handed it to Douglas without hesitation. "That would probably be best for everyone involved."

Douglas didn't take the jacket. Instead he said: "I'm going to ask you a few questions, then. The cockpit voice recorder records for what minimum period of time?"

Sherlock shrugged. "No idea."

"The deadliest airline disaster occurred in what country?"

He vaguely recalled something involving two planes colliding. "Somewhere in Europe?"

"The number of passengers required to carry a flight attendant?"

"You're asking the wrong person."

The look on his face went from suspicion to worry. "What was the first navigational aid to be installed on most airplanes?"

"I don't have the slightest clue," Sherlock said, hoping the man would finally get the point. He looked at Sherlock for a few moments and turned to leave.

"Carolyn, we have a problem," Sherlock heard Douglas say as he stepped out of the cockpit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "eat a lot at parties" thing is an obscure reference that I still hope someone gets. 
> 
> The airline Arthur mentions that used to sell seats in the bathroom is real: in the Seventies the Russian airline Aeroflot did just that.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin's got some more surprises to deal with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge apologies for this being so late, I got a bit writer's blocked. Also apologies for its brevity; the next chapter should be longer.

"Martin."

He couldn't tell who was calling his name. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but not enough to identify it.

"Are you feeling all right?"

"No," he managed to choke out to the voice. He still hadn't opened his eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"It's not there. Nothing is there that I remember. All gone." He hoped he wasn't going to start crying in front of this stranger.

"What do you mean?"

Martin finally forced himself to open his eyes. "I rang my boss. The number didn't exist. I rang her home and the person there didn't know who she was. I tried to look up the number in the directory and they said there's no such listing."

John stared at him for a moment. "But you know you got the numbers right."

"Yes."

This John had seemed relatively unfazed by most of what had happened up to this point, but this clearly stumped him. "So do you have any idea of what was going on?"

An idea came to mind from a book Verity had loaned him. She adored science fiction of all kinds and seemed pleased that Martin was open to reading them more than either of her parents. "Maybe we've swapped dimensions?"

That didn't seem to make John any less confused. "What do you mean?"

"I was reading this book where there's these people that have figured out how to go from one universe to another. The main character said that all molecules go both ways and that universes split then."

"So you switched... molecules?" It was clear that John still didn't know what he was getting at.

"No. In the book there are ways you can go from one universe to another. They're made when molecules go two different ways. They've all got their own patterns, like colors. Someone or something decided to put us both elsewhere. In the book they never swap bodies with anyone else though." Why did every explanation he tried to give make him sound stupider? Douglas would never have that problem.

Something he said must have worked, because the light went on in John's eyes. "Like alternate universes, then? Those books where the Germans win World War II or the Soviets drop the bomb or something?"

"Yes!" Apparently he had explained it well enough. "If he's there, and I'm here, and we're both in the same there, we can at least swap. But if we're in different theres, there's no way to go there from here."

"If you were in the same universe, you could at least go home?"

"I'm sure people would wonder who I was, but we could both go back to our normal lives until we figured out how to switch back."

"All right." This John looked like he dealt with odd situations all the time, but this was unique. "What were you doing before you woke up here?"

"Sleeping? I don't remember doing anything out of the ordinary." Martin's head was starting to hurt again.

"It wouldn't make much of a difference even if you did, because you still wouldn't know what anyone did on this end."

Martin realized at this point he hadn't asked the obvious question. "Who is it that I'm in the body of?"

"Sherlock Holmes."

He forced himself to smile, although he didn't find it funny. "Yes, I know you're John Watson. But who am I?"

"Sherlock Holmes."

"Look, I might only know a lot about airplanes. But even I know who Sherlock Holmes is." If he hadn't seen so much other weirdness by this point, he'd have still been thinking this was some sort of prank of Douglas'.

"Lots of people do. He's very famous."

"And he's over a hundred years old and a character in a bunch of books. Who is this?"

John narrowed his eyes. "Sherlock Holmes. There might be someone in a book in your world or universe or wherever that's named that, but that is also the name of the person whose body you are in."

"But it's the modern day. Is this 2015?" It was the only thing that came to mind.

"Yes."

"In the books he's living in the 1800's. Is he a detective?"

"Yes." John seemed a little paler.

"And you're a doctor?"

"Yes."

"This is giving me a headache." Martin wasn't joking; his head had started to throb. "You don't know any famous Martin Crieff's in fiction that happen to be pilots, do you?" If he was a fictional character in this world he wasn't sure how to react.

"Not that I know of."

Before he could ask anything else, there was a knock on the door.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and the cabin crew adjust in their own ways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, sorry for the delay in the update.

Planes, to Sherlock, were a means of getting from one place to another. He didn't care how they worked and he didn't need the other man, Douglas, warning him not to touch the instrument panel. Even now as they were in flight he kept looking over to make sure Sherlock didn't break the rules.

Once he'd left the cabin after his set of questions, he'd announced that they had a problem. "Whoever that is, it isn't Martin."

"And he looks just like him because..." The woman sounded tired. "Is it his evil twin brother?"

"I'm not sure, but it's not Martin. I asked him some aviation questions and he couldn't answer any of them. He didn't even seem to mind that he didn't know." Well, of course Sherlock didn't mind. He'd never read those sorts of things.

"How do you know this isn't some sort of joke?"

"And when I said I should just take his hat, he said 'That would probably be best for everyone involved,' and handed it over to me."

Sherlock heard the woman gasp. "He did what?" She spoke again after a few seconds (the man must have just nodded): "So where is Martin now?"

"I haven't the slightest clue."

"And has his doppelganger mentioned anything about this?"

"No, but considering he claims to be Sherlock Holmes, we're probably not going to get much out of him."

"So what do we do? We have to be ready to leave in ten minutes."

"I tell him not to touch an instrument, he sits next to me, and we go back to Fitton. We can work out the rest there." With that the man came back into the cockpit. "You sit there until we land. Don't touch anything," he said to Sherlock, as if he couldn't have possibly heard them from ten feet away.

"What's going on?" Sherlock turned at the sound of the voice. The other man from before now stood in the doorway.

"Arthur, get back here and sit until we take off," the woman said.

"But what's -"

"I'll explain it to you later." He shuffled away and Sherlock returned his gaze to the front of the plane.

The large man next to him - Douglas, wasn't he called? - started to push buttons and pull levers. After a few seconds of this, he said: "Apologies for the delay, tower, our captain has a bit of laryngitis." Sherlock almost felt impressed that he'd realized that they'd need some excuse as to why the person who was usually in this body wasn't talking. That part was the only one he fully understood, though, and he mentally tuned out the rest of the chatter and shut his eyes. All the light from the display hurt his eyes, and anyway he had no need to see what a takeoff looked like from the cockpit. The feeling of leaving the ground was the same, in any event.

While Sherlock didn't fall asleep, he did wait about fifteen minutes before he opened his eyes. The man who had been ordered to the back of the plane was there, handing the man next to him a mug of coffee. Once he'd done that, he looked Sherlock up and down confusedly before leaving without a word.

"Don't touch anything," the man next to him snapped.

"I wasn't planning on it." Sherlock took a good look at the man again. Mid-fifties, divorced three times, two children from different marriages. Currently in a serious relationship with... Oh, why hadn't he seen it before? He was in a relationship with whoever was typically in this body. That was why he was so sharp with Sherlock - he hates having to look at a lover and somehow see a stranger. And he fears that the situation might be permanent. Sherlock didn't see any reason to think that - if they'd been able to swap in the first place, they'd be able to switch back some way. If it wasn't anything they'd done and was rather on some third party, that would complicate things, but it would all be sorted out somehow.

The flight back to England was reasonably uneventful. Every ten minutes or so, the man who had brought in the coffee would appear in the cockpit, look Sherlock up and down, and leave without a word. He only broke the pattern on the last visit. "Where's your hat?" It took several seconds before Sherlock realized the man was talking to him.

"He took it." Sherlock pointed towards the large man.

The standing man vigorously shook his head, causing his fringe to fall into his eyes. "Not Skip's hat. _Your_ hat."

"What hat?" Sherlock had a feeling that they were speaking at cross-purposes.

"The one you always wear! The one with the ear flaps and the plaid! Oh, do you have your pipe?"

He looked so enthused that Sherlock tempered his response a bit. "I don't wear a hat like that, and I've never owned a pipe."

"Well, can you tell the story about the dog with the glowing jaws and that time you slept in that little hut because someone got killed and -"

"Arthur!" The woman barked out his name. "Come back here now and don't bother the man."

"Go sit down, Arthur." The large man seemed far less irritated with him than with Sherlock. But if he had been in the same situation - wait, he was. Whoever was supposed to be here had to be with John now, in his body. He scowled at the idea, even though he suspected that whoever was in his body was not going to try to seduce John.

When the plane landed, the man next to him used the same "larangytis" excuse that he had used before, and it was clear the man on the other end had a hard time believing that, but didn't ask any questions.

"Now you can get up." This was obvious even for someone who only knew planes got you from one place to another, as the plane had stopped and the man was undoing his belt.

As Sherlock got up he heard a delighted cry from the man who had asked about his hat. "Herc!" Sherlock headed down the steps and saw the man - Arthur was his name, wasn't it? - embracing another man. The other man was in his late fifties and carried himself with a confident air. The fiance of the woman, married four times himself, several now adult children, semi-retired. A golden curly-haired dog accompanied him. "You brought Snoopadoop!" He knelt down to pick up the dog, who started to lick his face. "Are we going to that ice cream place again? The one with the good cows? Because we're going to pick a flavor for the wedd.. I mean event!"

The older man looked the woman and the large man up and down with a suspicious air. "Why do you both look so grim?"

"Oh, they're just upset because someone swapped Skip for someone else. He looks just like him, but he's really Sherlock Holmes!"

The man now looked at Sherlock, then the other two again. "What is Arthur going on about now?"

"Martin has vanished. The person currently in his body claims to be Sherlock Holmes." The large man sounded angry.

"I know you're thinking this is some elaborate joke, Herc, but let me assure you it isn't." The woman then told the story about Sherlock not knowing the answers to the questions the large man had asked him and how he had handed over the hat when asked to.

The man's eyes widened. "I suppose this means you'll be ordering far more fruit trays in the future?"

"Wait. What are we going to do with him?" The large man pointed at Sherlock with a look of distaste.

"Doesn't he go home with you?" The man they called Herc didn't seem to fully understand the situation.

"Martin lives there. Not _him_."

The woman rolled her eyes. "Well, what else is there to do? Make him sleep outside? Call his old landlord and ask if the attic's empty? Give him a blanket and make him sleep on GERT-I? Lock him in the portacabin?"

Arthur perked up at this. "If he sleeps on GERT-I can I do it too? We can have popcorn! I know where Karl hides it!"

The woman raised her hands in a gesture of silence. "It is my plane and no one is sleeping on it at all. Douglas, take him back home and lock him in the basement for all I care. We can do problem solving tomorrow."

"So we're going to go see the friendly cows and eat ice creams?"

"Yes we are." Arthur, the woman, and the other man all walked off into the distance. He was now alone with the large man.

"Come with me," he said tersely and walked off towards the car park nearby. Sherlock followed him to an older Lexus. "Sit in the back." While Sherlock would have protested, he had nowhere else to go, and so sat in the back. The man glared at him one more time before starting the car, and it occurred to Sherlock that he was going to have to live with this man until everything was sorted out.

He told himself the man had to calm down sooner or later. How bad could this be?


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and Douglas establish some rules.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuse for how late this is other than I've been doing a lot of writing elsewhere.

Sherlock spent most of the trip back to wherever the man lived looking out the window. It wasn't normally something he did, but he'd never been in this place before, and he wanted to learn something about it. From what he saw it seemed to be a place based around the airport there; he didn't see anything else that looked like an industry.

The trip wasn't long, so it didn't give him much of a chance to look around. He was almost disappointed when the man - Douglas, wasn't he called? - told him: "Get out."

He got out. They were at a small house with a garden fenced in the back. The house looked lived in. He'd gotten the house in the divorce of his most recent wife, then, probably as a result of her adultery. "Do I go inside?"

"Don't be smart with me. You're lucky I don't make you live in the shed with the geese." Douglas turned on his heel and headed into the house without a word.

Sherlock looked over the fence before following him in. From the looks of the yard, geese did indeed live there. He supposed the shed near the back of the garden was the goose shed. He'd have to take a good look later.

He walked back from the garden into the house. The hallway was plain and unadorned, with the exception of a doormat that said "Pilots: looking down on the world since 1903." There were a few hooks on the wall, and he hung up his coat on one of them. Once that was done, he stepped into the sitting room and took a look around. One big screen TV and DVD player, one sofa, one fireplace. The sofa was scuffed up, probably from the times the big man's children had come here. There were photos on the mantle above the fireplace, and as Sherlock stepped forward to look at them Douglas appeared in the room.

Sherlock decided he did not like being looked down on. The body he was in now was about John's height, so he wasn't very short, but Douglas was at least an inch above six feet.

"There's a room upstairs with your - I mean Martin's - name on it. Go there until I figure out what to do with you." From the tone of his voice, Sherlock knew better than to pick a fight. Instead he nodded and headed up the stairs.

Right at the top of the stairwell was a hall with several doors, three nearby. One was open and revealed a bathroom, one was shut tight, and the third had a sign made out of wood on it that said "Martin's room" in writing done in every color of the rainbow, one for each letter. The cartoony planes drawn on it indicated it had been made by a child, and since he was sure this body didn't have children, it had to be Douglas' youngest.

The door wasn't locked. Sherlock stepped into a small room with a mahogany desk that held a computer, one office chair, one recliner with a bedside type table next to it, and several shelves of books. The book shelves took up almost every space on the wall. There was even a fat volume sitting on the computer desk. Sherlock turned to look at the one closest to the door. Unlike the others, it was crammed with three ring binders. Each one had a white sticker on the binding with writing on it. The first said "Aircraft Accident Reports, 1950-1959." Predictably, the second was "Aircraft Accident Reports, 1960-1969." As he looked down the shelf, he saw that 1970 to 1979 were three sets of binders, and after that there was one for each year. The last one was labeled "Aircraft Accident Reports, 2015." So at least it was the same year here as it was back home. While he didn't much care what an aircraft accident report was, he did want to see what was so important about them that this Martin wanted to keep them, and so he selected one at random and opened it. Inside was a computer print out, holes punched in the sides of the pages and reinforced on the sides. This Martin was clearly a cautious person. He skimmed through the first print out. It was something from the States describing a plane crash in minute detail. The subsequent ones in the binder were the same, although they came from all over the world.

He put the binder back and looked at the other bookcases. _Air Accident Investigation_. _Air Disaster_ (volumes 1-3). _Aircraft Accident Analysis: Final Reports_. _Aviation Disasters_. _The Naked Pilot_. _The Black Box_. _Fatal Words: Communication Clashes and Aircraft Crashes_. _The Limits of Expertise: Rethinking Pilot Error and the Causes of Airline Accidents_. _MAYDAY: Accident Reports and Voice Transcripts from Airline Crash Investigations_ **.** There were dozens more books, but Sherlock's eyes were starting to glaze over at the repetition. Didn't this man have any interests that didn't have to do with planes? There was even a joystick at the computer, something he hadn't seen in years.

Downstairs, he could hear Douglas moving about. He had no doubt that if there was a way he could be simply locked in this room until everything got fixed, the man downstairs would have done it. At least John would try to not act too upset at the man in his body now.

He then noticed a picture on the computer desk. Two, actually, one on each side. The left picture showed all adults, but the right one had a child in it. He picked up the frame and examined it. The man who he was in the body of stood next to Douglas. Standing in front of Douglas was a teenager of about eighteen or nineteen, heavyset, who had dyed her originally brown hair with streaks of pink and green. In front of the other man was a child of about ten or eleven, skinny and dark-skinned, grinning for the camera. So these were the two daughters.

Someone bellowed from downstairs. "You! Down here!" As much as Sherlock felt irritated by being ordered like a dog, he also knew this was where he'd have to live until he got his body back, and thus decided it was best to go downstairs.

Since Douglas wasn't in the hall itself or the living room, he walked down the hall into the kitchen. He was indeed there, and from what Sherlock could see he had been attempting to make either stew or stir-fry; the meat and vegetables on the counter were however so cut up they resembled an attempt at puree. Once he heard Sherlock enter the room, he turned around. "We need to establish some rules." Cutting the vegetables and meat must have diminished his anger, as he spoke flatly; of course the reason he was so angry was that his relationship with the body (as Sherlock had begun to think of the absent person) was not long-term and he was nervous over previous failed marriages. Of course, that must have been what the cheerful one meant about the extra brilliant part. He meant that he wanted his mother's wedding to be a double wedding with these two. That was the reason for the "Not after six months" comment from Douglas. While the man had clearly not been the brightest, he seemed to understand people well and must have seen something that indicated a bright future for the two of them. Sherlock tried to imagine how he'd feel if this had happened six months after he got involved with John instead of two years. Much to his dismay he could see himself acting like Douglas.

"That is reasonable," Sherlock said in the same flat tone.

"You will live in the guest room until this is sorted out. Luckily Emily will not be visiting for another month. Don't go in her room at all."

"Fine." Emily had to be the younger daughter. It wasn't like he'd wanted to go in the room of a ten or eleven year old girl anyway; it wouldn't tell him anything.

"You will come to work with me. However, you will always be a passenger."

"Think I'm going to rob the place and run, then?" Sherlock knew perfectly well he just didn't want a stranger in his home alone, no matter what body that stranger was in, but he threw in the barb anyway.

Amazingly, although his whole expression darkened, Douglas' tone remained flat. "Whatever it is you want to do, you'll be only doing here when I am at home." He went on. "You will not do anything even remotely mean-spirited to Arthur under penalty of being thrown out of the house."

"Who's Arthur?" He couldn't be a son; there were clearly only two children from three marriages.

"Our steward."

So Arthur was the one who wanted to know where his hat was, whatever that meant. "I wasn't thinking of it." He was overly friendly, but he wasn't even as big an idiot as Anderson.

"Good." He looked back at the cut up vegetables and meat. "You are dismissed. I don't want to see you until dinner, which will be in one hour." Douglas' glare was sharp enough to drive him from the room. He nodded and left.

As he headed upstairs to the place called Martin's room, Sherlock realized now he had severly underestimated how easy this was going to be.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin tries to settle in, but awkwardness still ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is very late. I have no excuse.

"John?  Is that you?  You're up early."  A voice came from behind the door.

"Just fine, Mrs. Hudson," John called back, looking briefly at Martin.  "Landlady," he mouthed before saying "Nothing to worry about."

"I just hope you didn't wake Sherlock up."

"Don't worry, I didn't."

"All right.  Just keep it down a little."  Whoever was at the door Martin could hear going back down the steps.  He breathed a sigh of relief.  His heart was racing.  If he'd been at home he'd have gone to his room, but here...

"Are you all right?"  John must have noticed his distress.

"Nerves."  He didn't want to say the words "panic attack."  There had to be something he could do.  He suddenly thought of the laptop he'd been using before.  "Is it all right if I use your laptop for a while?"

"That laptop isn't mine, but go ahead and use it."

With a relieved sigh Martin left the chair and sank down into the nearby sofa. He picked up the laptop again, pulled up a web browser, and typed in the URL for the JetPhotos forum he was a regular at.  Thankfully, it came up and he could even recognize a few threads - the endless debate about the safety of the 747, the conspiracy theorists bringing up past crashes, and the congratulations for the new captains of various airlines.  He tried logging in, but wasn't surprised when it didn't work.  Oh, there was a thread for the 1985 JAL crash anniversary from a few days ago; he felt sad that even in this world it had still happened.  He'd left condolences for the families in the thread in his world.  Since he didn't have an account he couldn't do that here, but he was curious how different the threads would be.  The first post... wait, that couldn't be.  Four survivors?  There were at least twenty.  He reminded himself it was another world, but reading more of the thread didn't make him feel any better.  In this world, no rescue officials had been sent out until several hours later, since authorities thought there were no survivors.  All four names of the survivors were ones he recognized, but his heart sank even more when he realized one of them had a sister survive in his world, but not in this one.  At least that mother and daughter had still both lived.

Shaking his head, he got out of that part of the forum and went to the one that was for the new captains.  It was one thing that never failed to make him smile.  And truthfully, seeing other captains who were just as proud of their planes as he was for GERTI made him feel less like a weirdo.  He soon lost himself in the threads there and in the other parts of the forum.

"Martin?"  He turned to see John standing behind him.  "I know this is still a bit of a shock for you, but I know a doctor who I'd like to have look you out.  A medical examiner, really, but she can be quiet about all this.  I doubt there's something physically different about you now, but it can't hurt."  Martin looked at the clock on the laptop and realized he'd been reading for more than an hour.

"I suppose," he replied, not feeling all that good about leaving the flat and stepping into another London, even one that looked the same.  "When do we leave?"

"Right now, if you're ready."

Well, he'd have to do it at some time.  "All right.  Just let me shut this down."  Martin shut down the laptop and followed John down the stairs.  He was almost afraid to step foot outside the flat - what if the sky was purple or giant lizards roamed the streets or any other thing that would make him focus on the fact he was in a strange place with no way to get back?  But there was nothing that struck him as being especially odd.  He hadn't spent a lot of time in London, unless you counted the airports, and so he had nothing to compare it with, but no obvious difference was somewhat reassuring.

Martin assumed they'd take the bus and was a bit surprised to be bundled in a cab.  He avoided looking at John throughout the short trip, staring out the window instead pretending the city was fascinating to him.  When they arrived at a hospital, John took his hand and led him through several doors before stopping at one that said PATHOLOGY in red letters.  "Don't worry, it's just that the doctor I know works here."  If John was trying to reassure him, it didn't do a very good job, as now all he could think of was the potential worry that might be in there, and he very reluctantly went through the swinging doors.

It was a... morgue.  Just a morgue.  He had been expecting something far more sinister, and let out an audible sigh of relief.  John had disappeared from sight, but Martin heard his voice call "Molly?  Where are you?"

"Didn't I say no more body parts for a week?" a woman called out in response.  She sounded irritated.

"This isn't about that.  It's... sort of a delicate situation."

"John, you were a medical student once.  You worked in A&E.  Please don't tell me you're coming to me with..."

"Not like that."  John came back into the room, a woman with long brown hair at his side.  "Sherlock's... not here."

She turned to Martin, her eyes wide.  "What's going on?"  Something clearly had surprised her, but he didn't know what.

"Meet Martin.  This morning he was here and Sherlock was gone."

This Molly had to be fairly unflappable (Martin supposed anyone who worked in a morgue had to be that way) because her only sign of shock was a hand to the chest.  "So there's someone named Martin in Sherlock's body?"

"As far as we can tell."

"Do you know how it happened?"

"No."

"What do you want me for, then?"  Her whole face crinkled in confusion.

"Just give Martin here a general exam.  Tell me if there's anything different."

"Can you get me a stethoscope?"  From the look on her face it wasn't clear if she really needed one or just wanted a moment to process all this.  John headed out of the room and she looked awkwardly at Martin before saying: "So, um, is this your first time in a morgue?"

"Yes."  Martin suddenly wished he was anywhere else.  At least he wouldn't have to be his socially awkward idiot self if he was alone.

"You.  Um, what do you do?"

"I'm a pilot."  For once he didn't mention that he was the captain.

"For, um, who?"

Martin imagined Douglas making a comment about anyone who put "um" into three consecutive sentences had to be perfectly calm and almost laughed.  Instead he said "Just for a small airdo- line." He hoped he'd at least sort of looked like he had a poker face.  From the way she looked at him, it clearly wasn't working.

Thankfully, John came back into the room with a stethoscope and ended the awkward attempt at conversation.  "Got it," he said.

Molly took the stethoscope without a word and pressed it to Martin's chest, and then his back.  She did some sort of cursory going-over of his body after, not making any requests.  "I'd like a blood sample," she said, looking directly at John.  "Right now I can't see any obvious difference, but I want to try to match the blood with the past readings."

"So nothing is medically different?"

"As far as I can tell."  She sounded more confident now, like the businesslike examination had calmed her.  She walked over to a cupboard and pulled out a syringe and a blood vial.  "I'll assume you're no worse of a stick than Sherlock is."  She rolled up one of his sleeves and tapped his arm before wiping it with a piece of cotton wool.

This was enough for Martin to look away; he didn't faint at the sight of blood like Douglas did (something he was under obligation to never reveal) but being stuck with a needle was never fun.  Fortunately, Molly stuck him and drew the blood quickly and efficiently.  "I'll have the results tomorrow," she said when she was done.  "I'll ring you with them and if anything is really odd I'll ask you to come in."

"Let's just go back to my place," John said, and headed out the door.  Martin, noting that he hadn't said "home," followed.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin and John drift.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late, no excuse, hope to start updating every other week.

At Martin's insistance, they stopped at the library.  He borrowed John's card to check out as many books on flying as he could.  The first and third Air Disaster volumes were there, as well as a few more basic technical books. John said little about this.  Martin didn't want to make him upset, if that was possible, so he just went along.  As soon as they got back to the flat, John told him: "You can sleep in the room upstairs, or read, or do anything else you want."

"And what about all this?"

"If Molly couldn't find anything wrong there isn't anything we can do, is there?"

This wasn't what Martin wanted to hear.  "I was sleeping," he said, like that would create an answer even though John knew it already.

"And because of that I don't think that there's anything you can do on your end here that would make you go back.  Sherlock was asleep too."

He sighed at John's words.  "I guess."  He slunk back to the bedroom he'd woken up in.  The library books came with him and he put them on the side table before letting himself fall to the bed with a sigh.  It felt like he had fallen down the rabbit hole.

It was only then he began to think about how this Sherlock was doing with the MJN crew.  Arthur loved everyone (except maybe his dad), so he'd be cheerful regardless, but he didn't imagine Douglas and Carolyn would be pleased with someone who couldn't fly a plane.  He wondered if Sherlock was as desperate to get home as he was.  From what little he'd seen, and how John had immediately known that he was someone else, he suspected that he was quite a different personality than a certain Martin Crieff.

Suddenly he was filled with an almost supernatural longing for his home, and he fought back tears.  To distract himself, he reached for the nearest of the library books and made himself open it.  The words swum in front of his eyes, and he blinked a few times and made himself look at the book again. This time he could read the words. The familiar descriptions of aviation procedures and policy were somewhat comforting, and that terrible longing diminished.

He must have read for hours, because when he finally looked up from the pile of books he noticed it was getting dark outside.  "You didn't even turn the light on?" he heard and turned around to see an older woman with short hair and a patient expression standing at the bedside.  "Goodness, it's airplanes now?  I hope you're not planning on blowing one up."  Martin couldn't tell if she was kidding or not.  He wondered if she was responsible for the Iron Maiden he had heard earlier.

"Mmm," he finally said.

"Are you and John having a to-do about something?  He's sitting in the sitting room like he just got unpleasant news."

"It's just been a long day." 

From the look she gave him, he wasn't doing a very good job at pretending to be Sherlock Holmes.  "Well, if you want the kettle's on and I heard John say something about Chinese."

He had no idea what to say in response and was glad when she left.  He'd have to ask John her name.  And no sooner did he think about him that the man appeared in the room Martin was in.  "Do you like Chinese?" he asked.

"It's fine," Martin said truthfully, although he would have given anything for one of Douglas' gourmet-seeming meals, or airport sandwiches, or even Arthur's Surprising Rice.

He must have noticed Martin's hesitation.  "I can get something else."

"No, it's fine.  I'm just not very hungry."  This body was skinnier than he'd been in his attic days, and that was saying a lot, but Martin doubted that even in his own body he'd have much of an appetite.

"All right then."  Every time they talked it seemed like it was between two people who knew each other only vaguely, from working at the same place or from living in the same building, and always made an effort to be polite to each other regardless of what it meant.

They didn't talk much while waiting for the food.  Martin went back to the bedroom, grabbed one of the Air Disaster books, and buried his nose in it until he could smell the food.  John didn't ask him what he wanted; all he did was put a plate on the table in front of him.  He picked up the fork and ate everything despite not being that hungry.  He remembered Douglas' early campaign to fatten him up some, and figured the least he could do for this body was help it along some.

"I thought you said you weren't hungry?"  John stared at him from across the room once he looked up from the food.

Martin didn't think "the body I'm in now needs to gain weight" was a sensible answer.  "Changed my mind."

John shot him an odd look, but went back to his food.  "You can have the telly to watch if you want it."

He couldn't think of a single thing he would want to watch.  "No, but thanks."  Maybe he should just go to bed early.  For all he knew they'd switch back when they slept again and it'd just be another story Arthur would love to repeat but no one would ever believe was true.

_Oh, Arthur_ , he thought with another pang of sadness.  Arthur would be the one person who wouldn't bat an eyelash at all this, but did this Sherlock Holmes think he was endearing or annoying?  Douglas and Carolyn would do what they could to protect him, of course, but that didn't mean whoever was in his body couldn't get in a few digs. 

"I think I'll go back to my - the bedroom."  Sitting in there reading was less stressful than having to interact with someone he hardly knew.  "I might go to bed early."

"Sleep well then," John said, not looking up.

Of course, when he got to the room and shut the door, Martin suddenly had no desire to read.  He had even less desire to go back into the sitting room and make awkward small talk, so he just flopped down on the bed and stared at the ceiling.  He might know why the Comet failed so often in its first years, or the instrument panels of  sixteen types of aircraft, but he had no idea how to solve this.  Eventually he fell into an uneasy sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock gets into a fight and has a visitor.

It was not the most awkward meal Sherlock Holmes had ever eaten, but it was surely in the top five.  He didn't feel like eating in the slightest, but the man across from him glared at him when he picked at it, so he forced himself to swallow it down.  He even gulped - something that he had mocked Mycroft for doing before and who would certainly mock him back if he ever found this out.

After the meal, he got up from the table and realized that he had nowhere to go.  He could go sit in the room set aside for the man whose body he was currently occupying, of course, but that was all about planes and a computer he had no interest in using.  Outside?  Nothing of interest there.  This Fitton was clearly not in the same class as London, or even Yorkshire, for that matter.  Even the garden wasn't safe.  He didn't think the other man had been kidding about the geese.

He settled for taking a look around the sitting room again.  It was clearly set up for the comfort of the other man - Douglas.  The furniture was older, clearly used, but also well-made.  Clearly not changed much since the man whose body he was now in had moved in, which is why the room upstairs existed.

"What are you doing?" Douglas' voice boomed from behind him.

"Looking around.  Or does Daddy not want me to do that?" he spat out.

It was only when the punch came at him that he realized the man had taken it as some sort of commentary on age gaps in relationships and not that he'd been acting like a parent.  Sherlock was quick enough to bring up his arm and deflect the blow, using his other arm to make a fist and bring it within inches of the man's chin.  It was harder than usual, and he mentally cursed being stuck in a short body.  "Don't try that again."

Douglas looked at him in slowly dawning horror.  Sherlock could tell the horror was from using violence against someone who for all intents and purposes looked just like his partner.  He wasn't a violent man, (his punch would have been much more refined if he was) but Sherlock annoyed him and he acted so differently that for a moment he had forgotten about the body swap.  He slowly put his hands down at his sides, and took a few deep breaths.  "I think it is best if I retire for the evening.  You may sleep on the sofa here if you wish, or there is a guest bedroom on the first floor."

"That will be fine."  At least he didn't have to make conversation with the man.  He didn't want to sleep, either, but maybe there would be some book he could look at.  Or he could go into the upstairs room and see if that computer could go online.

Curiosity about the new world he was in won out, and he headed upstairs to the "Martin's room" to see what he could find online.  He fired up the computer and sat down in the chair.  The operating system screen was at least familiar, and when the desktop came up it showed the computer was online.  He pulled up the available browser and typed "Sherlock Holmes" into it.  Millions of results came back.  This clearly would be more complicated to research than he thought.  The first result wasn’t even about a Sherlock Holmes at all, but a Wikipedia entry about Arthur Conan Doyle.  Sherlock did know who he was; John had read that silly book of his about dinosaurs in the Antarctic last year. (He had pointed out its ridiculousness several times.  John had told him it was just a book, and a horror classic.  Sherlock reminded him he had said the same thing about Dracula, and John had fired back that he had liked Frankenstein well enough and… It had ended with Mrs. Hudson making sure she played Metallica loudly enough so she could claim selective deafness.)  The memory was enough to make him pause to compose himself before he started to read again.

"Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle KStJ, DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer best known for his detective fiction featuring the character Sherlock Holmes..."

What?  He read it again.  This was saying he was a fictional character.  Not just a fictional character, but one created almost a hundred years before he had been born.  Wikipedia helpfully informed him the complete works of Arthur Conan Doyle were available at Project Gutenberg, so he headed there.  The first story written was apparently "A Study in Scarlet" and that seemed to be a good enough place to begin.

After a few paragraphs, Sherlock had to stop.  It might have been a hundred years ago, and a lot of the circumstances were different, but this was still _John_.  When he talked about his dire circumstances upon returning to London, it sounded just like John did when he related the circumstances he had been in before meeting Mike in the park.  In this version, they apparently met in a bar, and Mike was a dresser (whatever that was).

He forced himself to read on.  When his book-self first appeared, that lifted his spirits.  While he knew several tests that could indicate the presence of blood, he couldn't think of one off the top of his head that could have been developed around the turn of the last century.  He also liked the fact his book-self seemed much more openly happy to meet book-John, even though he thought the whole time they were being a bit too obviously romantic at a time when having gay sex could send you to prison.

Was there a mystery involved anywhere?  He skimmed the next parts until he got to a particularly gruesome murder scene.  (Book-Lestrade was clearly not much like the one he knew; he wouldn't win any prizes for looks, but he certainly didn't look rat-faced.)  It wasn't until he got to the word "Rache" on the wall that it dawned on him this was essentially the same case as the woman in pink if it had been a hundred years earlier.  He skimmed straight down to the end to confirm it was indeed a cabbie.  The motivation couldn't have been the same at a time when divorce was rare, but when he went back up to see if a motive was given, Sherlock was treated to a long spiel about Mormons in the US he couldn't make himself finish.

He picked another story at random (there were sixty, unbelievably enough).  Three others were long like the first one, but the rest were short story length.  He began a game where he read the story and tried to see if he could figure out the solution by the time he was halfway through.  Sherlock usually succeeded, but he did take longer than the time John had given him Agatha Christie novels in the hopes he would be amused by them.  (He got to the murder in _Murder on the Orient Express_ , read one more page, and correctly guessed the ending.  _And Then There Were None_ took a second murder before he solved it.  He hadn't bothered to read any of the others; they clearly weren't worth his time.)

The sun was starting to rise when Sherlock got through the last of the stories.  He heard an alarm go off in another room.  "Pilot, of course, needs to rise early," he said to himself.  Would the other man make him go to work with him?  He couldn't imagine something more dull than sitting in a plane for hours on end.

A few minutes later he heard the man say "No, Carolyn, he is not coming to work with me."  Pause.  "I don't want to leave him alone here."  A longer pause.  "That is possibly the worst idea you have ever come up with."  After almost a minute of silence, he spoke again.  "If you must.  But I am warning you if he does anything to upset him I really will make him live in the shed with the geese."

The conversation had to be over, since Sherlock could now hear the man coming down the hallway.  When the footsteps stopped he heard the man say "You're awake already." 

"Never went to sleep," Sherlock said, glancing over his shoulder briefly.  The other man had come to stand in the doorway.

"Well, you'll be able to catch up today, since you're not going anywhere."

"Good."

"Someone is going to come here to make sure you don't do anything horrible to the place while I'm gone."  Sherlock could hear a waver in the man's voice and realized that the whole of what was going on had to have hit him by now.  He imagined John in the same situation and suddenly felt pity for the other man.  It was enough to make him bite back any sarcastic comments about a babysitter.

"All right," he simply said.

"I'm glad we understand each other."  The man stepped away from the doorway and presumably went off to get ready for his day.

At this point Sherlock didn't feel the need to spend more time alone in that room, so he headed downstairs.  He poked around the living room for about fifteen minutes before there was a knock on the door.  He heard the man come down the stairs, and looked over at him.  He was already dressed for work and had a bag in one hand.

When he opened the door, at first Sherlock didn't actually see a person.  It just seemed like a large pile of items with a fluffy white dog barking at the man's feet.  Then the pile said  "Hi, Sk- I mean Sherlock Holmes.  Or should I call you Mr. Holmes?  Or Homes?  Or just Sherlock?"  One of the items fell at his feet, revealing the steward from the day before.

"What are you doing with all that?"  The man didn't seem as surprised as he could have been.

"Well, we'll be here together all day, so we'll need lots to do!"

"You're my babysitter," Sherlock said disbelievingly.

"Of course!  Won't it be fun?"


End file.
